Angel of the Knights, Chapter one
by Mahtoma
Summary: Gally from Gunnm ends up in the world of Bubblegum Crisis, Tokyo 2040.
1. On the Wings of an Angel

On the wings of an Angel,   
Flight One: We're not in Kansas anymore  
The night air was bitter and stale as a young girl rolled through the crowded streets of Scrap Iron City. It was a night like any other, the dregs of a crumbling society had crawled out from beneath their collective rocks and were peddling their wares like usual. Weapons, black-market parts, prostitution, drugs, and gambling, it was all available to whoever wanted it.  
The girl who raced by them had no interest in such things. She already had a weapon, a rather sleek blade wrapped in cloths stuffed in her backpack. She already had all the body parts she needed, in fact, she had a second body waiting at home for her. Sex, drugs and gambling didn't interest her in the least, she could not engage in the first, she was too self-conscious to engage in the second and she had gambled with her life too many times to enjoy the third.  
This was a girl who had no past, no memories and no real solid goals except to learn what her goals were. Her eyes were filled with sadness, her heart filled with tears, and her soul filled with regrets, as she rolled along the streets on cybernetic wheels. This girl was an example, and example of how cruel technology has become, where in order to save a life, one must replace flesh with steel, organs with machinery, and souls with circuit boards. Thousands, perhaps even millions of people in this darkened city of the future have the same problems, eking out fractured lives in bodies of metal and plastic.  
She wore clothing over her metallic body, although unlike other girls she did not wear extravagant dresses or the latest fashion. Normal pants split at the bottom so her dual-wheeled feet would fit covered her legs, and a simple jacket covered her torso, keeping her the equivalent of warm. She could not feel heat or cold in most of her body, but she felt the mental need for a jacket anyway. In her backpack/rucksack she carried various and assorted tools, a meal, and pieces of purple tinted armor, something no normal girl would have need for. Strapped across her back was an ancient keyboard instrument, which she carried with her everywhere, even if she had no desire to play it at those times.  
The body she wore was built for battle, a body used for high-speed combat on a racetrack in a vicious, lonely sport known as Motorball. Though her days in that horrendous sport were over with, she still wore the body, occasionally, as a reminder of what she had been through. Tonight she decided to go out in it for reasons she could barely comprehend. Unlike her normal cyborg body, this combative body was still built to kill, to race, and she had little use for either of these things any longer. She could sing and read now, something far more relaxing than the adrenaline filled fighting in her past.  
Perhaps she wanted to clear her head of the doubts she had been feeling as of late. She had given up the battle, not because she did not enjoy the fighting, which she did, but because the fighting had grown dull and repetitive with time. Numerous identical situations flashed inside her mind, every one ending the same, her complete and utter victory. There was no challenge anymore.  
She passed by a group of homeless cyborgs, who shouted out to her, a few wolf-whistles and lewd comments were said, but she didn't hear, nor would she care even if she did. She did not think of herself as pretty, nor even beautiful, not since that fatal night... And because of that, she forever marred her smooth face by permanently scarring it, leaving two steel death marks, one on each cheek. She had no use for the marks any longer, but she was stuck with them. At this point, even if she could remove them, she most likely wouldn't.  
This girl, who is known by millions, loved by thousands, and only friends with a handful, is simply called Gally, a name given to her by the man she could almost call father. She is a girl unlike any other ever known, and a woman who changes the lives of everyone she comes in contact with.  
  
Murishawa Productions present  
A Knight Errant series  
Angel of the Knights  
A Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040/Gunnm Crossover  
  
Zalem was high in the sky tonight. The moon's gravitational pull on the floating city was stronger on this one night a month more than any other. Because of this, the pneumatic tubes, which connected the city in the sky to the wretched city of the ground, were straining, making that agony-filled sound it made occasionally. Gally referred to the sound mournfully as, "A thousand souls crying out in anguish," and tonight it sounded like they were screaming.  
This did little to help Gally's state of mind. Even in her half-conscious state she could still hear the noises, and she could swear she heard individual souls crying out her name, hundreds in total, one for each life she had taken or witnessed lost. Her one true love was amongst those voices, and that hurt more than any.  
She sped up, racing down a deserted street into a grouping of old waste tunnels. No one went into this deeper part of the city any more, not even the lowest of the lowly dregs. They were afraid of what might lurk beneath. Gally was not afraid. She raced through the tunnels like they were nothing, which they were truth be told, and came out the other end completely intact. She didn't wander into the branch tunnels, not because of fear of what might lurk in wait; instead it was merely an urge not to get lost in the labyrinth of ancient tunnels.  
It was when she emerged that she noticed the clouds pooling above, dark, evil clouds filled with acid rain and pollution. Her body could easily withstand such foulness, but she decided to duck back into the caves and wait out the storm anyway. She was low in the city, but not so low that the tunnel she was in would flood out.  
Lightning crackled through the now torrent-filled sky, striking sparks along the ground nearby. The lightning reminded her of one of her greatest accomplishments and failures, the defeat of a great enemy and the loss of a great love.  
She sat just inside the tunnel, her legs held tightly against her body and her arms wrapped around each other in an expression of sorrow. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as she allowed herself the luxury of remembering, something she did very little of.  
At that instant, a bolt of lightning struck just inside the tunnel, right next to where she sat. The force was so powerful that she was flung away from it, far into the cave-like structure. The blast was so powerful it shorted her systems out, leaving her helpless in a pile of newly formed rubble. As the bolt subsided, she could feel the darkness encroaching on her senses leaving her to fall victim to the nightmares that waited in her dreams.  
-------------  
She awoke, still surrounded by rubble, but not buried in it. She tried to move an arm, and found that it yielded to her will like it always had. She tried a leg with the same result. The bolt had apparently only fried her systems for only a short time.  
She got to her feet slowly, uncertain of her possibly damaged body, but her fears quickly subsided as she stretched and moved about. The shutdown had been temporary, and the effects were all long gone before she even woke up.  
She listened carefully for the rain, and hearing no sound of it, she decided to go outside again, and perhaps in a few more minutes, she would head for home. She walked through the rubble carefully, using her wheel brakes to walk instead of roll, and when she emerged, she stopped dead in her tracks.  
The outside world was not as it had been before. Instead of a murky cesspool of humanity, it was bright and cheerful, filled vibrant, flowing colors and giant towers that shot up into the sky. Shimmering ponds of water lay nearby, cleaner and clearer than she had ever seen before. Green trees sprouted from sidewalk planters, something she had never imagined possible, and grass grew fiercely in a small park a few yards away.  
The sky. She stared all around at the endless blue and found no trace of the floating city Zalem, only the huge skyscrapers shared space with the cool, clean air. Her nightmare and Yugo's dream was nowhere to be found. She stepped farther out, finding that she was still in a drainage tunnel, but one far better maintained than Scrap Iron City's.   
She smiled to herself. She wasn't sure what had happened exactly, but what she did know was that she was no longer in the city she once called home. She didn't know how she had arrived in this new city, and she wasn't sure if she would ever make it back. This thought hurt, but not near as much as she thought it would. She already missed her surrogate father, Daisuke Ido, but there wasn't much she could do about that.  
She made up her mind quickly. She wasn't going to drone on about something she couldn't change. It was time to adapt, just like she had done dozens of times before, only this time she would not have to harden her heart to the world and its peoples. This time she could let warmth and joy fill her to the brim.   
She started walking, then rolling along the streets, taking everything in with a smile and a glad heart. The city was so healthy and fresh, paint covered buildings and free flowing water lie in every direction. She rolled along happily, enjoying every moment of her new existence.  
Of the inhabitants of this city, no one really noticed the new arrival. They were all too busy heading to work, heading back home, or rushing toward some important engagement. Those that did glance her way just thought of her as another roller-blading young girl, hurriedly rushing toward whatever. They all had more important thoughts in their head to allow space for questions about the strange child-like skater.  
Gally kept going like this for what seemed like days, and yet the sidewalks never appeared to end. There was always somewhere to go in this enormous metropolis, she realized, and always newer and more magnificent things to do.  
It was while she was skating quietly, absorbed in her myriad thoughts, that she ran right into it. A large mechanical creature that was busy pruning a large apple tree. Its hide was a faded orange and gleamed of cybernetic advancement and sleek design. She was taken aback by its sheer appearance.  
{A cyborg?} she wondered as she pulled herself up off of the ground, {Here? In this beautiful city? It can't be,} she worried and yet all of her worries were quickly laid to rest when it turned to her.  
Every movement the creature made was slow, with attention to detail and over-emphases on safety. It spoke just as slowly and with a clearly mechanical voice, "This unit apologizes for getting in your way, Madam. This unit meant no injury. Are you alright?" it asked through an expressionless metal face and visor.  
"No..." she hesitated, "I'm fine... Uhm, what are you?" she asked curiously.  
"This unit is a Bio-organic Mechanical Robot, designed to maintain this area of land, Madam. You may call this unit a 'Boomer' if you wish."  
"A Boomer?" she wondered. She had no idea what "Bio-Organic" was, but she had heard the term "Robot" from one of the many books she had grown fond of reading in Scrap Iron City. A mechanical construct designed to serve man, if she recalled right. She had read numerous stories on them, and though the one standing before her was similar to the cyborgs she had encountered over and over in her life, she could also see the differences as well. It made no pretense at being human, and had next to no sense of individuality.   
"Yes, Madam," the Boomer answered, "It is the simplified designation. Now, I must return to my assigned duties."   
"Yes, of course," Gally agreed, then started rolling down the street again. Her mind was once again swirling with strange images of Boomers and Cyborgs, how the were alike, and how they were different. If this new world had accepted Boomers so readily could it be possible that it would accept her and her malformed mechanical body? Would they treat her like a Boomer, a second-class citizen as well?  
Her reverie was broken as she heard someone scream nearby. All thoughts of confusion and hesitation were brushed away in a single instant as her body and mind became one and her anger seethed to the top. {This is the perfect city!} her mind screamed, {I can't let people get hurt here!}  
-------------  
Elsewhere in the city, a city known as Tokyo, a siren wails as three special police officers race towards a very special kind of crime.  
These three officers, Leon McNichol, Daley Wong, and Amishi Kurimitsu, are part of an elite team of police, the AD Police, whose sole purpose is to find and eliminate rogue Boomers. It is not an easy job, and oftentimes they end up thankless and almost hated by the public as a power-hunger nuisance. The public does not believe in rogue Boomers. They believe they are a legend created to steal the taxpayer's hard-earned money.  
However, rogue Boomers are a very real, and very dangerous situation, and the heavy arsenals and armored suits used by the AD Police force are necessary to destroying them. However, scarily enough, in many instances, even their heaviest firepower is not enough...  
"Damn it!" Leon shouted, slamming his fist against the dashboard of his squad car, "This had to happen at a time like this!" Leon was a man of action, one could see it in his muscular build and tight features that he was always looking for a fight, even if it wasn't with criminals. He was a young man, but stress was starting to wear on him.  
"What's wrong, Leon?" his partner, Daley, said smoothly, a ray of light glinting off his glasses as he speeded the car down the streets. The man rarely ever flinched at anything Leon did, and always seemed to chuckle at his fiery explosions of emotion, "Upset because the Boomers don't follow a strict schedule?" Daley was the opposite of Leon. He was slim and lanky, dignified and calm. He radiated sensibility and a feeling of compassion.   
"Shut up, Wong!" Leon growled, "It's not that. I just don't want to drag the chief's niece along with us," he said, gesturing at the woman sitting in the back seat.  
"Oh, don't worry about me, sir," Amishi said cheerfully, "I am an AD Police Officer, you know." Amishi was your stereotypical blonde, all bubbly and energetic. Her dark skin was smooth and clean, and her curly blonde hair was a wild disaster, kept in check by a single large red bow. She was a beautiful young woman with exceptional proportions and Leon found himself sneaking the occasional glance at her then chastising himself for looking at the chief's niece in that way.  
"You're a rookie," Leon argued, "You're not ready for this kind of action. Boomers are a dangerous threat and if you get hurt, the chief will..."  
Amishi cut him off, "Don't worry about my uncle, Inspector. He knows I have a risky job. I have to do something, you know, otherwise how can I protect the city?"  
Leon blinked in surprise. {What kind of a girl is this?} he wondered.  
Daley spoke up, "You know, she does have a point. We can't keep her at the station forever, and she is a licensed K-suit pilot. We can't hold her back just because we're afraid she'll get hurt."  
Leon turned to look at his partner, "Damn it, Wong, stop taking other people's sides!"  
"I'm just telling the truth," Daley smirked.  
"That's right," Amishi agreed.  
"This is just great, first Nene, and now this! I'm in hell!" Leon groaned.  
-------------  
In a third part of the city three other individuals were driving toward the same incident as the AD Police officers in a much more subdued style, an ordinary-looking delivery truck. These are not police, however. These people are part of a vigilante team of mercenaries known as the Knight Sabers.   
The woman in the front seat of the car, separated from the other two, spoke with emotion as she drove along, "This Boomer appears to be a normal maintenance model. It shouldn't be too much of a problem. But we're two steps behind on this one, so you'll have to watch out for the AD Police." She was a beautiful woman with long flowing silver hair and radiant purple eyes, yet beneath the beauty lie a woman of cold fury and emptiness. Her name was Sylia Stingray and she had a very old grudge to settle with the world.  
"If it's that simple of a problem, then can't we just leave it to the police for once?" the second voice asked hesitantly. This voice belonged to Linna Yamazaki, the newest member of the Knight Sabers. She brushed aside her shoulder length brown hair and set her green and orange helmet atop her head, letting the seals lock in and completing her green-tinted armored hard-suit.   
She and one other were standing in the back of the truck, preparing themselves for yet another battle with the Boomers. The hard-suits they wore were powerful, advanced armored power suits, designed to amplify a normal human's natural abilities and loaded with enough weaponry to take on even the toughest of Boomers. This did not negate the fact that Boomers were still a danger, however, and even the most powerful weaponry they could muster might not be enough.   
This thought caused Linna to hesitate. Would their weapons and armor be enough? The last time she had donned the armor it had failed on her, and that failure nearly got her killed. She hid the fear she felt in her heart and donned the helmet, letting the connectors snap into place. Her heart was beating rapidly as the full interface came on, letting her know every little detail.  
"You know we can't do that, Linna," the woman in the front explained, "What if it should get past their defenses and hurts innocent people?"  
"You're not starting to have second thoughts about this, are you, Linna?" her partner, Nene Romanova asked through her suit's voice filter. She was far younger than Linna, no older than eighteen and only a few months more experienced at fighting Boomers. She was actually scared most of the time, but hid it well just before the fighting started. Her suit matched her personality, pink and red and very petite.  
"No, of course not!" Linna quickly argued, "It's just, the suits... Are they really safe, Sylia?"  
"Of course they're safe. That incident was a fluke. It was the batteries fault, not yours," Sylia explained over the intercom, "If you don't think you can do this, I will have to send Nene alone. Do you want that?"  
"No!" Linna shouted, "I'll go. I'm just wondering..."  
"If you weren't hesitant, you wouldn't be human. But you have to push past that and find your inner strength. You have to do this."  
"I will. I can do this," Linna said aloud, steeling herself up, "How much farther?"  
"You can leave at any time... Wait," Sylia said, listening closely to her police scanner, "The radio says something about a girl on the scene. She's fighting the Boomer! You've got to leave now before she gets herself killed!"  
"A girl?!" Nene shouted, "She'll be slaughtered!"  
"Then let's get going," Linna affirmed, stepping into one of the four launcher tubes, which closed and locked around her.  
Nene stepped into the second one and nodded her head within the helmet, "Ready!"  
"Then Knight Sabers, move out!" Sylia said, and grabbed a strange, trigger looking device, she pulled it twice, and the two armored figures were launched from their respective tubes into the night sky.  
  



	2. Reckless Hearts

Flight two, Reckless Hearts  
When Gally arrived at the scene of the Boomer rampage, she was quickly assaulted with a barrage of sights, sounds, and smells. All around her she saw death and destruction on a level only someone of Makaku or Jasugaan's level should have been capable of. Trees had been torn from the ground and thrown through shop windows, benches had been ripped up from their moorings, twisted and torn apart, and tossed as if they were tissue paper.  
But the property destruction was not the only damage the Boomer had made. Less than a meter away from her feet was a man, or at least part of a man. Everything from the upper torso down had been torn off and dropped a few feet farther away, leaving intestines and bodily fluids leaking out onto the sidewalk.  
This angered the young girl, filling her heart with hate and an undeniable urge to kill and destroy. Her vision was flooded with what seemed like white light and everything became black and white clear. She knew who her enemy was and that it must be utterly annihialated, lest it hurt more innocents.  
She reached into her rucksack and removed a large, long bundle. She bit the knot on the tie with her teeth and yanked, letting the cloth fall away to reveal a long, thick blade which gleemed with deadly intent.  
She stepped into the building where she heard the most commotion, a half-demolished flower shop, and prepared herself for the worst. She got what she had wished for.  
A large creature stood before her, tearing at the displays of flowers, sending petals of every conceivable color into the air. If she could have watched with indifference, she would have noticed the sheer beauty of the effect, but her concentration was focused solely on the monster.  
It was a gruesome-looking thing, with metal clinging to its skeletal body in a half-melted way, too much here, too little there. The entire thing pulsed and throbbed as if it were alive, and the screeching sound it made could make any normal human shudder in fear. It reached out a long, vicious looking hand/claw, and grabbed the cash register, and in a stunning display of technology gone mad, it absorbed the metal and wiring into itself, increasing the overall bulk of the already top-heavy creature.  
That was enough, Gally decided. She had seen enough of her opponent to decide on a course of action. With blade raised high, she jumped into battle...  
--------------  
Shortly before Gally had arrived, Leon, Daley, and Amishi were already on the scene, trying to understand what was going on and how best to deal with the situation. Roadblocks had been put up around a three block radius and more than a dozen armored police units had been rushed in, carrying heavy assault rifles. This was not near enough for a Boomer, however, and almost every one of the officers realized this. Those who didn't were the young and brash type who had the traditional belief that they would live forever.  
"What in the hell are all of you doing standing around for?!" Leon yelled angrily, waving a fist in the air, "All of you move in and find that Boomer!"  
"Yes, sir!" they answered in unison, then rushed into the building, guns high and randomly aimed at anything the owners conceived as a threat. A few random bursts of armor-piercing rounds emanated from the building, but other than that, all was silent. The officers had come up empty.  
"Anything, yet?" Leon demanded, clutching half a headset to the side of his face.  
"Nothing, sir?" a static-filled voice responded, "The Boomer is no longer in the building."  
"Then search the next one. We're not letting it get away!" he shouted.  
"Uh, partner, I hate to tell you this but..." Daley noted dryly, but with a hint of worry.  
Leon turned to look at his partner, the anger seething from every pore now, "What do you want now..." he cut off as he saw what Daley was talking about.   
Amishi was climbing into one of the armored K-suits that were used in extreme Boomer cases. She had a serious look on her normally carefree face as she strapped into the suit. She looked like she was ready to kill...  
"What in the hell do you think you're doing, Amishi!" Leon shouted, running up to the suit.  
"What does it look like?" the girl asked, staring straight ahead, "It is my duty to stop rogue Boomers no matter the cost."  
"This is your first time out! What if you get hurt, or worse?!"  
She turned her head and looked down at Leon, a bit of the sweetness returning to her face, "Don't worry. I'm an ADPolice Officer after all. Danger is my middle name!"  
"Your middle name is gonna be mud if you hurt yourself!" Leon argued.  
Amishi paid no attention to the young man's protest's and flipped a switch, causing the chest plate to flip down and seal in place, confining her within the armored suit for the duration of combat. The metal faceplate seemed to gleam through it's camera eyes, as if there were some sort of malicious intent in the armored warrior.  
Daley calmly walked up behind Leon and placed a delicate, effeminate hand on his partner's shoulder, "She is a K-suit pilot, Leon. It is her job."  
"I know. But the chief is still gonna kill me..." then he realized his partner's hand, "Get off me, Wong. I'm not in the mood to deal with your crap right now!"  
Daley removed his hand and raised the other in a form of mock surrender, "Excuse me for trying to be the strong, supportive partner!"  
"Supportive my ass!" Leon growled.  
It was at that moment that Leon detected movement. This in itself should not be strange. He was in the middle of a disaster area with ADP officers rushing to and fro searching for the Boomer and any injured survivors. The place was filled with movement. But what he saw, or rather felt, was far more graceful than any Boomer or ADP grunt. Whatever was out there moved with feminine grace and agility, and that could only mean one thing in his mind...  
"Dammit! They're here already!" he growled.  
"Who?" Daley asked, a bit confused at Leon's emotional turnaround.  
"The Knight Sabers!" Leon answered, "But they're not gonna beat us this time. We got here first for once!"  
Leon was wrong. The female movement he felt was not a Knight Saber. Something far more deadly was roaming the streets this time.  
--------------  
Anger. Anger and pain. And hell's fire, the purest hell fire one can imagine, running through veins of plastic and wire. Veins connected to servos and plates, and adapters and motorization systems and articulators. Articulators which allowed a metal hand to extend, grip, bash, pound, tear, wrench, and grab. A hand that was grabbing a block of metal, intricately and carefully carved into a bladed weapon with an edge so fine one could barely see it. An edge that was cutting into a monster far more gruesome than any found in ancient movies and comic books.  
These were not thoughts. These were not mere statements. These were actions. Actions broken down into the most intricate detail, carefully studied, defined, simplified, and stated. This was the way Gally's mind worked when she was in battle. Everything becomes complex, then simplified, taking it all in her mind's eye in a single instant, than breaking the situation down to only what is important.  
Of course, she does not realize she has this gift. All she knows is that when the rage hits her, everything becomes white, and then it becomes brutal.  
It was getting very white right now. It would be whiter in moments...  
  
Boomers do not think the same way as humans, nor do they interpret data in the same way Gally's combat-honed mind does. No, Boomers analyze everything and anything that comes in their path, breaks each and every object down into sub-catagories, and monitors every little detail for change, never losing track of the big picture while studying the small details. Nothing is left to chance in a Boomer's core. Everything it does is done because that is its job.  
Rogue Boomers are another thing entirely. Just as their sane counterparts monitor everything at once, rogue Boomers find themselves capable of focusing on only one thing at a time. No detail, no scrutinizing, no analysis, no big picture. Their greatest weakness and greatest threat all mixed into one.  
The subject the rogue Boomer in the flower shop was attempting to focus on was a small creature. It had no idea what a girl was, its brain having lost nearly all files when it went mad, but it knew enough to realize that the creature was "Bad". It had a weapon that was causing it "harm", "hurting" it and damaging its systems. It wanted to lash out, but with each time it tried, all it managed to do was damage more of the building.  
It didn't really care. It was not designed to care in the first place, and now that it was insane, it cared even less. All it wanted was for the "creature" to stop "hurting" it.  
  
Gally attacked the Boomer without mercy. No quarter drawn and none given, so to speak. Her blade bit into its body over and over, tearing machinery components and spurting fluid with every strike. This was good in her mind. If it could bleed, it could die, and she was going to make sure it bled a lot.  
She pounded relentlessly at the thing, hoping with each strike that it would go down and stay down, but it refused to die as easily as the gutter filth she was used to. And though its combat skills were nowhere near Makaku's or Jassugan's, it was still a force to be reckoned with, and it's arms were still powerful enough to crush her body into metallic splinters.  
One of those arms, a large, overly bulky thing with pincers, tried for her head in an attempt to crush her brains and end its torment, only to make contact with a nearby support piller, completely destroying it and bringing more rubble down around them. Gally decided that she'd had enough of that arm, so with one quick, skilled slash, she forever removed it as an obstacle. The arm pounded to the ground pathetically, fluids spurting from the damaged end.  
But a mere lost arm was not near enough to stop a Boomer, and Gally realized this the hard way when it lashed out at her with one of its grotesquely thin legs. Its action was foolish, since it took out its own support and brought itself to the ground, but it finished what it set out to do by launching its opponent away.  
Gally grunted in imagined pain when the force of the Boomer's kick knocked her against a crumbling wall. Though her body could not feel pain, that was not necessarily a good thing. She could not recognize all of her damage, only visible scratches and wound, and she had no onboard computer like some science fiction suped-up heroine might have to tell her what was wrong. That is why she did not know about the tear along one side of her jacket sleeve and the bolt of metal that had ripped through a hydraulic pipe on her wrist, gushing precious fluid that kept her arm active and ready for battle.  
Even if she had known about her arm at that point, she most likely would have trudged ahead anyway. She had never before backed down from a fight once it had begun, and she wasn't about to start such a trend now. With a leap, and a scream of anger, she rushed forward, slamming her blade deep into the Boomer's head.  
It howled, an agonizing scream that echoed around the room, causing the fighter to wince in pain at the sound. She had to stop the noise, and there was only one way she knew. She raised her fist, the one she did not realize was gushing fluid, and started batting at the creature's head, still keeping it in place with the embedded blade in the other hand. She batted it back and forth, like a mouse playing with a ball, only with much more violent intent, smashing up the metal face a little more with each pounding blow.  
Finally, with one last heaved blow, she managed to separate the speaker from the creature's face, sending it flying through the air, a sparking, battered mess. The howl stopped and the creature crumbled to the ground, finally dead.  
"And stay dead..." Gally spat at the thing, almost pitying its grotesque form. It was a good fight, she admitted, but not a really satisfying one. There was no real thrill. She had done good, she knew, but so much damage had been done, so many lives had been lost. If only she had been there sooner, destroyed the thing faster than she had, perhaps then she would feel better about the whole mess. As it was, there was a gnawing feeling chewing away at her insides.  
She walked over to where her rucksack and keyboard lay, the last items of her old world lay in those two objects. A few pieces of metal and plastic were all she had to remember the way things were back there. The thought saddened her. She had no idea what she was going to do now. Whatever form of law enforcement that existed would certainly be after her now, she was certain, and if it should come to a showdown between her and them, more innocents would most likely be hurt or killed.  
She reached down and grabbed the two objects, flinging them over her shoulder as if they weighed nothing. She turned for the opened doorway, which had become more of a gouge in the wall thanks to the Boomer, and was about to walk away when she noticed something, something not right about her surroundings. She hadn't sensed it before, of course she was in battle before and had no time to think about such things.  
She turned around and scanned the walls over, looking for what may be lurking in the shadows. She was right. There, hiding in a darkened corner of the room were two figures, one in green, the other in pink and red. Their bodies were hardened metal, like armor, and their faces were featureless half-globes. It was like she was staring at the past, a remembrence of a story told to her by a friend who would be father, of knights in shining armor, only these were knights of some science-fiction age. It was a mystifying sight, to say the least.  
She would not let her awe show through however, and using her deepest, most hateful voice, she asked, "What do you want?"  
--------------  
Late was not usually a word one would associate with the Knight Sabers, but for this one instance out of dozens, they were too far behind on the clock. Too many problems and too many hazards were in their way. A weak ledge that Nene landed on, causing it to collapse beneath her. A satellite array that moved before Linna had a chance to even respond. So many situations that degraded a normal night's work into the worst string of bad luck a human being could have.  
The two vigilante's spirits were in a shambles. Linna, who had nearly perfected the jump-thrust technique her first time out, was now at her lowest ebb in agility, an insult to her years of sports and exercise that led up to this moonlighting career. Nene, who had always been the worst fighter of the group, was brought down a few more emotional notches by her own pathetic display of mere movement when she had been doing this for half a dozen missions.  
This was not what you would call their finest hour.  
That was the case, and that was the shape they were in when they finally arrived on the scene, ready to fight it out and get it over with as quickly as possible. Each one wanted to be home soon, so they could relax and bathe and get some rest before going back to their respective day jobs the next morning.   
Their mental state was so wracked that if they had actually gotten into a combat situation, they would most likely be torn to shreds before they even knew what was going on. They were slower than normal and they were more tired than usual.  
Fortunately, fate had intervened with a pinch-hitter, so to speak.  
At the scene of the rampage, in the epicenter of destruction, the Boomer was fighting tooth, claw, and anything else it could find, with what appeared to be a young girl, maybe twelve, but no older than fourteen. Though at first glance, the outcome seemed to be in the Boomer's favor, their opinions soon changed when they saw the girl sheer off one of it's arms with a wicked looking blade. The sight took the two aback, to say the least.  
"What the hell?!" Linna shouted through her radio.  
"Who is that kid?!" Nene said in shock.  
"What's going on over there?" Sylia demanded through their radios, "Give me a status report, Linna. Nene, give me a view on the situation."  
"Uh..." Nene hesitated.  
"Now!" Sylia shouted.  
"Uh, right away!" Nene answered, jumping over to a nearby outcropping to get a better view for Sylia's systems.  
"Linna, what's going on?" Sylia asked.  
"Someone is fighting the Boomer," Linna answered.  
"Who? The ADPolice?"  
"No. Not them..."  
"Then who?"  
"A little girl..."  
"What?!"  
"Got it!" Nene announced cheerfully, proud of her accomplishment. Standing before her was a standard security camera, wires extruding from its back and into Nene's suit. She had successfully rerouted the camera's video feed directly to Sylia's van, beaming all the information she could acquire from her scanners along with it.  
-------------  
Back in the van, a seemingly dead video monitor came to life with images of the battle between the Boomer and the girl. Off to one side, Nene's scanner data scrolled by, displaying what little information they were able to acquire.  
"Absolutely incredible..." Sylia said, studying the information, "If this is true than that means..." she gasped in realization, then slammed her hand on the radio transmitter, "Nene, Linna, you have to get that girl to come back with you!"  
"What?! How?" Linna asked, her voice warbled by the radio, but not enough to hide the shock in her tone.  
"She's beating up a Boomer single-handedly. How can we grab her?" Nene asked.  
"I don't care how, just do it!" Sylia demanded, then cut the radio. She turned to look at the screen again, watching the child/warrior in action and mumbling to herself, "Magnificent."  
-------------  
Linna and Nene watched the child/warrior with a different set of opinions then Sylia did. They watched how she reached in and yanked out a large chunk of the Boomer's torso with what appeared to be no effort whatsoever. And yet, despite all of the damage the girl was inflicting, the mechanized monster just wouldn't go down. It somehow managed to keep itself alive just enough so it could continue fighting back.  
"So how are we going to grab her, Linna?" Nene asked. Even though she was the supposed "Veteran" of the two, she deferred to Linna for guidance. Whether this was out of age, fear, or respect, was known only to her.  
"I... I don't really know. I mean, she's really going at that Boomer. What could she do to us if we got in her way?"  
"I don't want to think about that..." Nene said fearfully, "She looks really mean!"  
"Well, we have to think of something! Dammit! I wish Priss were here. She'd just rush in and attack," Linna said solemnly. She couldn't believe she actually wanted that pale-skinned biker girl here, but under the circumstances, another pair of hands could make all the difference.  
"Maybe we could wait until she kills the Boomer and then try talking to her," Nene suggested, "I'm sure she'll calm down by then."  
"Yeah, right. She'll probably run off the moment she's..." Linna trailed off when she noticed something, "Nene! Look at her arm!"  
Nene did as she was told and looked, and her jaw nearly dropped to the floor by what she had seen. The girl's jacket had been ripped along one sleaze, baring her arm to the world, and what it looked like was not natural.  
Hydraulics, actuators, circuits and wiring ran along a metal framework that composed the entirety of her arm. It was mechanical, through and through, and that thought made Nene shiver. If the arm was a robot's, did that mean the rest of her was too? That would explain how she was standing up to a Boomer, but that also raised more problems and questions. Was she another Boomer? Was she a new anti-Boomer weapon? If not, then who was she and why was she fighting it out with such a creature when she should be hiding her own existence?  
These problems became temporarily moot when Nene saw the battle draw to a close.  
The girl, who had been doing increasingly well against the Boomer, finally finished it off with a few quick punches, letting it's ruined bulk drop to the ground with tremendous force. She then reached down and extracted her blade, which glistened with hydraulic fluid and other machinery liquids.  
She turned away from the dead creature, not even caring to look over her handiwork, then walked over to where a rucksack and an electric keyboard were lying on the ground. She reached down and grabbed them in one fluid motion, and was about to walk away, when she noticed the two hard-suited figures.  
"What do you want?" she demanded, fire blazing in her eyes.   
Linna finally got a closer, unobscured look at the girl and what she saw scared her. Her face, which under normal circumstances would have been cute, perhaps even pretty, were marked, two chrome slashes that wrapped around her cheeks gave her a vicious, dangerous look that made the hard-suited girl tremble. Her body, although still mostly covered, betrayed a glimpse of metal and hydraulics here and there where the cloth had been torn, and her legs ended in wheels instead of feet. Overall, she was a mixture of cute and dangerous, a little on the short side, but powerful beyond belief.  
Nene, who had always had a tendency to open her mouth before she knew what she was getting into, did so, "What are you? Some kind of Boomer?" she blurted out shakily, holding up her armored fists at the girl, preparing her needle launcher for whatever might come next.  
"I'm not a Boomer," the girl answered hatefully, turning to look at Nene, holding up her blade so the girl could see it. A few drops of Boomer blood dripped from the unbelievably sharp weapon.  
"No, of course not," Linna quickly added, hoping to calm the girl's anger.  
The girl turned back to Linna, "Who are you?"  
"We're the Knight Sabers," Linna answered, "We fight rogue Boomers."  
"That thing was a Boomer?" she asked, gesturing with a thumb behind her.  
"Yes, something like that. We've been asked to ask you to come with us."  
"Why?"  
"Because our employer wants to meet with you."  
The girl sighed, "I have no place to go... I don't know how I got here or what I'm supposed to do now, so I guess..." she said, a hint of painful memories flashing over her face and a trace of sadness in her voice. She was cut off, though, when Linna started shouting.  
"Watch out, it's not dead!" the green-suited woman yelled, pointing back behind the girl.  
The Boomer, which had been beaten severely, was not yet dead, and with a monstrous groan, proceeded forward as best it could, it's fractured mind focusing on the girl, the one which had caused its current state of damage. Its momentum was slow, but improved with each step as its malformed body absorbed debris to repair itself.  
Then, with a hail of bullets from out of nowhere, all hell broke loose.  
--------------  
Amishi Kurimitsu realized she was a know nothing rookie. She knew she was far too green for fieldwork. However, she also realized that if she was ever going to become experienced enough to do fieldwork, she was going to have to prove it. That was why she was in the armored K-suit, and that was why she was running straight into danger, as fast as the machine's legs would carry her.  
In the Academy, she was always laughed at. When her friends were done with the day, they'd go off and party, drink, enjoy themselves, whatever. Amishi never did anything like that. Every night she stayed up late at the Academy library, studying up on the latest anti-terrorist scenarios and equipment, or at the firing range, practicing her skills, or in the simulation room pushing herself in K-suit techniques. She graduated at the top of her class, and yet it wasn't enough.  
Her entire time at the Academy, she was plagued by a string of bad luck, accidents and clumsiness. A firing mishap here, a loose connector there, a few lost books, and a load of clumsy trip-ups filled her days with aches, pains, scratches, bruises and wounds to her ego that may never heal. This labeled her as not only the bookworm, but the ditz of the entire school.  
But this time would be different, she assured herself. This time it was real, and this time she would prove to everybody that she had what it took to be a real ADPolice officer and a real K-suit operator.  
  
She trudged into the front office of the ruined flower shop, noticing all the ruined flowers and chunks of debris scattered everywhere. It was a sad sight, and Amishi counted her blessings that there were no identifiable bodies in the area to cause her to choke up. She was nervous enough as it was without seeing a body smashed beyond belief, blood everywhere, with some expression of pure horror upon the lifeless face of...  
She chastised herself for her thoughts. Thoughts like those wouldn't help her in combat. She pushed the thoughts away and focused on her surroundings.  
[A little girl? That's funny. What is a child doing here?] she thought to herself when she saw Gally standing before the defeated Boomer, [And why is she carrying a big knife like that?]  
Amishi realized that not all was as it seemed, and that the girl might be another Boomer, something new sent in by Genom to clean up their own mess for a change. Or the girl could be a military weapon, being used here for practice before it's sent out into real combat. Or maybe the girl was a member of the Knight Saber organization she had heard about in the Acadamy. Any number of possibilities.  
Amishi decided to hang back and see what happened before she sprang out. She had forcefully taught herself caution and was fighting her natural instinct to blindly start attacking everything.  
She watched as the girl grabbed her things, allowing a glimpse at the cybernetic body that lay beneath, confirming the officer's opinion that she was not what she appeared. She then watched as the girl got into an argument with the real Knight Sabers. Disproving one of her origin theories.  
Watching that particular development was interesting. Amishi had only heard rumors about the mysterious armored vigilantes, and only sparse rumors at that. No pictures, nor even a real good idea as to what they looked like. Now she was staring at two of them, a red one and a green one. A small part of her mind, a part that refused to grow up, was reminded of Christmas, and the idea sprang into her head before she knew it.  
"How cute!" she exclaimed to herself, than clamped a hand over her mouth when she realized she had spoken aloud. She waited for a moment before she could breath again. They hadn't heard her, but she wanted to be extra careful.  
She watched them closely, studying their armor as best she could, memorizing details and stroing them for later use. This was merely her first encounter, not to be her last, she knew, with the elusive vigilantes, and they were not high on her priority list. The Boomer was. She had to make sure it was dead.  
That was when she noticed the Boomer. Though it had appeared destroyed earlier, it was now moving again, absorbing material and inching forward toward the "girl who wasn't a girl". Amishi could not help herself. There was something in her mind that went off when she saw the childlike weapon in danger and she reacted. Her light-chocolate hand gripped the actuator control on the right arm of the K-suit, the arm holding the assault rifle, and a burst of fire erupted from the gattling barrel at the Boomer's torso.  
The Boomer fell forward, dead, its core pierced three times by the large rounds fired from the K-Suit's weapon. Amishi took it as an example of all of her extra training. The truth was far less exciting. The girl's earlier battle had damaged the Boomer's torso extensively, weakening the metal protecting its core, and so Amishi's rounds merely finished what the girl had started.  
However, the removal of the Boomer did not end the situation. In fact, Amishi's actions brought her into more danger than she could have imagined. The girl turned to look at the K-suit, a fire gleaming in her child-like eyes. Amishi could feel a cold chill run through her body when the girl looked toward her. It was as if in that split second the girl had reached in, pulled out her soul, and tore it in half.  
"Who are you?" the girl demanded, raising her blade to punctuate the question.  
[Uh, oh,] Amishi thought to herself. She had seen what the girl could do to a Boomer, so what could she do to her K-suit. It was armored, but not THAT armored. "Uhm..." she began, "I'm an officer of the ADPolice, and... And..." she froze up. She had no idea what to do now. The Knight Sabers were considered off limits since they weren't Boomers, but she had no idea on what to do about the girl. If she was some sort of new weapon the government was testing, than was she to be ignored or brought in? Could she bring the girl in with only the K-suit?  
"Come on, Miss, we've got to get out of here!" the green suited Knight Saber pleaded, grabbing one of the girl's arms, the one holding the blade.  
"Yeah, more of the ADP will be here any second. Please, come with us!" the red and pink one agreed.  
The girl pondered for a moment, "I have nowhere else to go," she mumbled. Then, with slumped shoulders, she relaxed and allowed the two girls to fully grab her and carry her off into the night.  
Amishi watched them rush off with a mixture of fear and awe. The way the two armored suits moved put her own suit to shame in every fashion. She worried about what her next confrontation might be and the thought of those women as enemies scared her.  



	3. First Impressions

Flight Three, First Impressions  
Linna and Nene sat Gally down a few blocks away from the Boomer rampage area, on a deserted street deep in the darker section of Sohto ward, where few normal people dared to go and rarely anyone was coherent enough to know what was going on. It was a preferred after-mission pickup location for the Knight Sabers. They could meet-up with Sylia's van, get onboard and drive off without anyone being the wiser.  
"What are we doing here?" Gally demanded the moment Linna and Nene set her down, "I thought I was meeting your boss."   
"You are," Linna answered simply. She was nervous having this extremely powerful girl being anywhere near her, especially with the angered look that she was displaying.  
"Then why are we standing in the middle of the street? Aren't we exposed?" Gally prodded. She wanted answers, answers to where she was, why she was here, what Boomers were, and why they went insane, and she wasn't getting any nearer to the truth with the two armored women.  
"We're not meeting here, silly," Nene replied, smiling behind the helmet, "We're just being picked up here," she pointed one massive gauntlet in the direction of a white delivery van that was barreling towards them, "That's our boss now."  
"Nene!" a voice shouted over the blonde's radio, "Don't give away information on an open channel!"  
"Sorry..." Nene said, shame dripping from her voice. She knew she had a tendency to put her foot in her mouth, but it always annoyed her to be caught in the act of doing so.  
"So who are you two?"  
"We're the Knight Sabers, of course," Linna answered, feeling a twinge of pride in knowing that she really was a Knight Saber, a dream come true for her.  
"You said that before," Gally noted, "I mean, what are your names?"  
"Oh, I'm..." Nene was about to speak when Linna cut her off.  
"We can't tell you that while were out in the open like this," she explained, "Once we're inside the Mobile Pit we can tell you what you want to know."  
"I want to know a lot," Gally answered in as defiant a tone as she could muster. She then turned and watched the delivery van speed nearer and nearer until it was almost upon them.   
If not for the skill of the driver, it would have torn right through the three, crushing them beneath the van's wheels, however, the van turned at the last second, skidding sideways to a halt just a few feet away from them.  
The van was non-descript in every way, even missing a label or name as to which company it delivered for, and since it was mobile, it could go anywhere in the city it needed to. Gally mused that it would be the perfect cover for a group of armored vigilantes such as the two standing next to her, it couldn't be tracked or traced if it was seen, and it could quickly reach danger zones without anyone noticing it.  
A door on the side of the van opened automatically, separating into two pieces. One piece, the larger part, extended outwards and upwards, allowing access, while the second, much smaller piece moved downward, creating a few steps to allow the girls to walk up into the vehicle.  
"Hurry, get in!" a voice cried out from inside, "The ADPolice are right behind you!"  
The three girls moved as quickly as possible, scrambling into the entryway, Nene jumping in last, which closed a second later. The van turned, then barreled away again off into the night.  
--------------  
Amishi Kurimitsu lumbered out of the flower shop in her K-suit, Boomer head in one massive hand and gattling rifle in the other. She made a few more steps before she deactivated the unit and opened the canopy.  
"Just what the hell did you think you were doing?" Leon yelled, running up to her, arms waving like a madman.  
Amishi glanced in the man's direction, "I was doing my job," she said in the most serious voice she could. It didn't come out serious at all, it came out the same way everything else she said came out, cutely.  
"You're job is to follow my orders, not go running off in a K-suit to play little-miss-hero!" Leon shouted, "You keep doing stunts like that and you're gonna be dead real quick!"  
"I killed the Boomer, didn't I?" Amishi asked, confused by Leon's shouting. She was overtired from the incident that had just occurred and didn't feel much like talking, arguing or thinking for the next several hours. She just wanted to go home and go to sleep.  
"Yeah, you killed the Boomer alright, but you could've been seriously hurt! The Knight Sabers might've been in there!" Leon argued even louder, then stopped as sudden realization hit him, "Wait, you killed the Boomer?"  
"Yes, I killed the Boomer and the Knight Sabers were there! And so was some weird girl!" Amishi shouted back, getting more than a bit fed up with Leon's shouting.  
Leon was about to go back into his ranting, when Daley, who always seemed to appear at just the right time, stopped him with his traditional hand to the shoulder, "Wait a second, Leon," he told his overactive partner, "Amishi, what do you mean by a weird girl?"  
"I mean there was some weird little girl with black hair fighting the Boomer when I got there. She thought she had killed it when the Knight Sabers showed up, and then the Boomer got back up and I shot it and the Knight Sabers ran off with the girl!" Amishi explained, although not with any real detail and with barely enough thought put into her words to make them make any sense.  
"I didn't quite get that," Daley answered quizically, "Could you repeat it a little more slowly this time?"  
"I said..." Amishi was about to begin again when Leon cut her off angrily.  
"Never mind!" the annoyed Inspector shouted, "We'll fill out a report back at the precinct," he turned to the officers milling about in the background, "Pack it up guys, the shows over, we're going home!"  
Amishi walked back to the car, leaving the K-suit and the Boomer body for the others to deal with, she turned and looked up at the skyline, hoping to find three glimmers in the sky, proof of the escaping Knight Sabers.  
--------------  
The majority of the trip to the Knight Saber's HeadQuarters was ridden in silence, each of the three young girls far to lost in their own thoughts to speak with one another. They entered the vehicle in silence, sitting down upon the specially designed seats inside without a word or extraneous action, save that of the two armored figures removing their helmets.  
Gally stared in disbelief at her two unmasked companions, their faces and hair that of extremely young women, one no more than twenty-three, and the other barely older than she herself appeared to be, perhaps sixteen, or an under-developed eighteen. That two women who had barely begun their adult lives could wear the tremendous armor and battle the demonic-looking rogue Boomers was astonishing.   
The battle-hardened cyborg stared at the older of the two women with awe. She looked certain of herself, but there were telltale signs of doubt and disbelief. The eyes were nearly watering with held-back tears of fear, and she was subtly biting her lower lip in worry.  
The other one, however, had none of the doubt in her appearance. She was happy, positively beaming with pride, as if going out in her suit was like sugar for her, the same reaction seen in Motorball players who played for the rush. She was an adrenaline junkie, it appeared, but looks, as always could be deceiving.  
Linna also stewed in her thoughts, allowing waves of conflicting emotions to smash against her mental defenses as she strove to keep a straight face about it all. Relief, anger, desperation, confusion, caution, trepidation, and fear all raged through her in a kaleidoscope of emotional colors. She glanced at Nene, who was so happy and cheerful; about everything, only getting truly angry or upset when one of the others started picking on her. She wished she could be more like her, grin and bare it, so to speak.  
Then she turned to look at the strange girl, with skin on her face and yet metal through-and-through as her arms and legs implied-. She seemed so awe-struck by everything she saw, and yet was doing her best to hide it. Linna felt deep down that the girl was not from Tokyo and so her awe probably stemmed from being in this strange, utterly remarkable feeling city. Linna could understand that concept quite well, as she herself was new to the city and found it just as awe-inspiring.  
Nene was engaged in thoughts wholly alien to the other two at that moment. Her mind was swirling with memories of the night, previous nights, and thoughts of upcoming nights. She was hyper, and her senses were literally overflowing with sensations. She was so excited over the nights events and all that it meant. Not only did she not get pulverized by the Boomer, like usual, which was always a plus, but she went out without Priss, which she knew would piss the singer off to no end. Plus there was the new girl, who could fight better than Priss, which she knew would also piss the singer off. All in all the night was aces in her book.  
"Tell me," a voice spoke from nowhere, shattering the silent atmosphere in the room, "What is your name?"  
"Who are you?" Gally demanded, looking around. She focused on a small camera unit placed near the front section of the room, directed specifically at her. Next to it a small speaker was mounted, where the voice emanated, no, more so flowed gracefully into the room.  
"I would appreciate it if you would humor me by accepting that I cannot answer that question. Not at this time, anyway. Suffice to say I am the leader of these girls, whose names you may also not yet know. We must discover if we can trust you enough to give you our names," the voice responded cooly.  
"If you can't trust me enough with your names, then why should I give you mine?" Gally shot back.  
"Well, we must call you something. Saying 'Hey you' isn't going to get either of us very far, after all."  
"Yes, but the same could go for you. I need to know what someone's name is before I am willing to speak with them as a human being," Gally countered.  
[Absolutely amazing,] Sylia thought to herself, [This girl is definitely not a Boomer.] She coughed, clearing her throat before she continued, "I can see it's a trust issue here. My name is Sylia. That's all you need to know for now."  
Gally pointed to the other two, although more for her own benefit than the mysterious voice's, "What about them?"  
"Girls, if you would please tell our guest your first names," Sylia prodded.  
"My name's Nene," the redhead said vibrantly. She eagerly reached out a hand, although the space between her and Gally made it practically impossible to shake without getting up, and in a moving vehicle that would be truly unwise. She pulled her hand back and smiled sheepishly.  
The older girl was far more hesitant, "Linna..." she said after a moment, worried to even make eye contact.  
"My name is Gally," the cyborg said suddenly.  
"Is that your only name?" Sylia prodded, "Or is that all you wish to tell us?"  
"It's the only real name I've ever known. It was given to me by a friend. I have a nickname, but I doubt asking to be called 'Killing Angel' would do much for a relationship."  
"Very true," Sylia agreed, "And we don't want to get this relationship started off on the wrong foot, now do we?"  
"I don't know, do we?" Gally asked, trying to put as much venom as she could into her voice. Sylia's mere use of the word "Relationship" meant that she wanted something from Gally, and that always spelled trouble in the young cyborg's book.  
"You shouldn't be so mistrusting, young lady," Sylia reprimanded, "We're probably the closest things you've got to friends in the entire city. It would be a bad idea to make us into enemies."  
"You're right about that," Gally admitted, lowering her head, remembering the people she knew and loved, people whom she may never see again, "I don't know anyone in this place."  
"Well, now you know us," Nene spoke up jubilantly. Deep down she really wanted to make the young girl feel welcome, although for reasons she couldn't put her finger on. Perhaps she truly felt for the girl and wanted to help her out, or perhaps she selfishly wanted the girl to look up to her as a friend or leader.   
Either way, she failed as the girl looked even more pained than before. "Do I really?" she asked, "I mean, all of this is happening so fast, I don't really know who to trust and which side I should be on. Those police officers didn't seem too happy when they found out you were there. Does that make you criminals, or merely rivals?"  
"The police do not approve of our methods in dealing with Rogue Boomers," Sylia explained, "We're not duly appointed officers of the law and so we are sometimes looked upon as outlaws. I wouldn't say they think of us as criminals as they do glory-hunting mercenaries."  
"What we do is right, it's just our methods that make the ADPolice upset," Linna offered, trying to assuage her own concerns at the same time, "I'm not too big on the idea of fighting against them either, but there really is no better way to get the job done."  
"Is there really, or have you just convinced yourself. Back where I come from, mercenaries are hired out as law enforcement. We worked for money, but justice was still served in the end... In most cases," Gally argued, trailing off at the thought of her long dead beloved Yugo.  
"There's no time to worry about semantics right now," Sylia explained, "We're home."  
"Where's home?" Gally wondered.  
"Considering you have no idea where anything is, let's just say it's in a safe part of town," Sylia answered. "We'll talk in a few minutes, after the girls have had a chance to change. I'll answer all of your questions then, all right?"  
"All right. I really have no choice in the matter, do I?" Gally asked with a "harumph".  
"No, not really," Sylia agreed.  
The door to the van opened to a world Gally was not expecting. From her own experiences, she expected a tiny, greasy, and dirty maintenance area just large enough to fit the van and a workstation in. Instead, she found a vast, almost empty chamber with hallways and corridors leading into other areas of the building.  
"How many people do you share this place with?" Gally asked in amazement. Surprise did not come easy to the girl, and shocked disbelief settled far less with her always-ready mind. She was nearly bowled over by her own emotions.  
"Why, no one. I own every inch of this building," Sylia answered proudly.  
"Absolutely incredible," Gally said. She stepped out into the chamber, quickly followed by the two armored women, "You must be very rich to own all this free space."  
"I have money, but I would not say I am overly rich. Why would you think that?" Sylia wondered. She stepped out of the vehicle's cockpit and right up behind the cyborg girl, almost without making a sound.  
Gally really didn't notice Sylia's abrupt and silent approach, she was still far too mystified by the sights around her for anything else to truly latch onto her senses. "Where I come from, free space is precious, and a chamber like this could house ten or twelve families. People who own large living spaces are considered well-to-do, people who own entire buildings are revered as super-rich."  
"You speak far more eloquently than a girl from the world you describe should sound like," Sylia prodded, her curiosity getting the better of her.  
Gally finally realized that the person she was talking to was standing directly behind her, she turned on her wheeled feet to stare into the eyes of her supposed benefactor, but was stopped dead in her tracks by the image that assaulted her.  
The woman was beautiful, most likely in her mid-twenties, with long silver-flowing hair and piercing lavender eyes. Her skin was pale, but not unhealthily so, and her body was shaped exquisitely, with the right touches here and there to give off an aura of caged sexuality. The woman was in complete control over herself, and one look into her eyes would tell one that she knew she could use her appearance to her advantage without any moral qualms. There was an iciness to her stare and her features seemed harsh beneath the beauty, but there was definitely something there.  
"Are you Sylia?" Gally asked, nearly stuttering out the question.  
"Yes. I am Sylia. I am the leader of the Knight Sabers," the woman answered, both cold fact and warmth dripped from her words.  
"I didn't expect..." Gally trailed off.  
"Did not expect what?" Sylia prodded, "That a woman like myself could lead a group of vigilantes? You yourself are a woman so that should not be what surprises you."  
"I did not expect that someone as beautiful as you could be the leader of such an extremist group of outlaws. Where I come from, people change their outward appearances to reflect their internal feelings. Criminals change their faces and bodies to avoid the law, to rise above the law," Gally explained, priding herself on an understanding of the criminal mind, "Female criminals, in particular the beautiful ones, scar or replace their faces to hide from those who would hunt them. And yet you allow your beauty to show, as if you were daring the law to come and get you."  
Sylia smiled slyly at Gally's words, "I would assume from what you've just said that you consider me to be a criminal? Why is that?"  
"You fight Boomers, which are a menace to society, I admit. However, you do so outside the confines of law enforcement. You are mercenaries and vigilantes, which where I come would be looked upon as the law, and yet here is seen as criminal. Would you not call that criminal?"  
"You yourself fought and nearly killed the Boomer. Would that not be considered a criminal act?"  
"I was not in possession of all of the facts at that time. What I have done was an accident. It will not be repeated. I am not the law here."  
"I see, and would you believe me if I told you that you are still not in possession of all the facts?"  
"Most likely not. But I will listen."  
"The ADPolice are under-equipped. They do not have the tools required to adequately dispose of Boomers. Their armored K-suits are like toys or relics compared to my teams hardsuits. They're slow, clunky, and far too lightly armed for the kind of work they're needed for. They're supposedly state-of-the-art and yet are seriously lacking in the most base Boomer fighting requirements."  
"Then give the ADPolice your suits. Let them use the technology to fight the Boomers. The Police have the manpower you do not. They can use them more effectively that way."  
"That is not their only downfall. Many of the ADPolice were culled from the normal police forces. These men have barely any skills required to effectively fight Boomers even if they were properly equipped. To give men like that high-tech weaponry like the hard-suits, we'd all be in serious trouble. The suits are meant for fighting Boomers, but in the wrong hands can be used to fight an army. I can't trust my designs in anyone else's hands."  
"It's still wrong," Gally argued, "There has to be a better way to do this."  
"Would it help you any if I said I had spent years thinking of a better way? Of perhaps convincing the government to create a task force, with operatives I specifically requested? Or maybe sell the armor and designs on the open market, creating a business competitor to Genom, so that the Boomer market would be weakened? NO, none of those approaches would have worked. Hardsuit technology is too unflexible, too strict, and there are too many secrets that I can't let the public know about. So I have to do things this way."  
"I can't say I understand, but I think things are clearer now," Gally shrugged. Her arm was starting to jam up on her, the oil was nearly depleted and the friction would start permanently damaging the joints soon, she realized. She hoped Sylia had the equipment to repair her arm and body, otherwise she was in real trouble. "If I may, I'd like to stay here tonight. I'll leave in the morning."  
"Why leave?"  
"I don't want to work with outlaws. I want to work within the law, so tomorrow I'm going down to sign up with the ADPolice."   
Sylia laughed, "I don't see how you can join the ADPolice with no training, no identity and a cyborg body. Not to mention that they probably have a warrant out for your arrest after today's stunt. No, I'd say the police are definitely not the way for you to go. Besides, I saw the way you acted, the police would never take you in, you're too brutal, too undisciplined, too destructive to be one of them."  
"It's the only kind of life I know, besides singing, and I doubt I could find a job for a singer in a city like this. Too many women out there already I bet. What could I offer the world with my scarred face and metal body?" Gally sighed unhappily. She knew her place in the Scrapyards, she had a purpose and a life. In this city, she had nothing, less than nothing without her friends and loved ones.  
"Then your options are limited. I suppose more may present themselves as time goes by. You are too hard on yourself, your skills are varied and quite impressive," Sylia said softly, reaching out with one long, elegant hand to stroke Gally's cheek, just under the metal slashes, "You are far more lovely than you give yourself credit for, the scars merely add to your intrigue."  
Gally did not enjoy Sylia's touch at all. It made what little skin she had crawl, and gave her a strange, frightening feeling. She pulled away quickly, hoping that by breaking the contact the feelings would vanish, and, thankfully they did. There was something about the woman that made the young cyborg uneasy. "Yes, well, for now I am out of options."  
-------------  
There are three members of the Knight Sabers whose duties are predominately combat oriented: The first, Linna Yamazaki, the newest recruit and most inexperienced fighter, who was good, but not yet good enough. The second was Nene Romanova, the weakest fighter and all-around computer expert, whose skills with the suit could use a major upgrade. Finally, there was Priss Asagari, the mysterious and aloof brute of the team, the one depended upon to defeat the Boomers. She was conspicuously absent from the day's battle, and no one had really wondered why. Everything had happened so quickly there was no time to complain about the missing third fighter until long after the battle was over, one of their members had even enjoyed Priss's absence.  
Priss, however, was not used to being forgotten. She was almost always available to fight for Sylia, and those times when she had a concert at her local bar she could almost always be expected to get away from it within moments after receiving her page. It got her in trouble with the bar's owner and manager, but it could easily be said that the bar would collapse without her, so these incidents remained unchallenged.  
This time, Priss never received a page, or a phone call, or anything that would indicate there was a problem and that her services would be required. She thought that nothing of interest had happened on this seemingly dull day. Little did she know...  
--------------  
Priss Asagiri walked down the side steps on the stage, a sweat-soaked towel in one hand, and her jacket in the other. She sat down at one of the unoccupied stools and ordered a beer. The bartender handed it to her less than a minute later, his speed something he took pride in and yet no one ever noticed. She took a drink of the foul-tasting brew, not really caring. She merely needed something to drink and this was the closest and cheapest at hand.  
"Did you hear? About the Boomer?" A young kid, probably sixteen or seventeen, said to his friend, a bearded guy with long curly black hair. The two were sitting just a few stools away from Priss, far enough away for Priss's required personal space to remain unbroken, but close enough for her to hear them over the sheer noise of the crowd. It was strange to think that such a young boy could have snuck into a bar, but the bartenders in that part of the city did not strictly adhere to the ID policy.  
"Yeah, I did. I heard it went crazy, started killing people. I heard rumors some weird girl killed it. I heard that the Knight Sabers were there too."   
"Bet you it won't be on the news," the kid pointed out.  
"Yeah, like they think no one knows about the Boomers, or the Knight Sabers. They're just covering up things for the government."  
"No, I heard the Knight Sabers are covert operatives for the ADPolice, and they don't want to admit they exist. If they did, it would blow their cover."  
"What cover? Why would they be undercover?"  
"As long as the people behind the crazy Boomers think the Knight Sabers are just a bunch of trigger happy mercenaries, they won't realize that the ADPolice are working with them to discover the truth!"  
"You've been watching too much Anime. This is the real world. There aren't any conspiracies. Only a few Boomers actually go crazy, and the ADPolice or the Knight Sabers usually take care of them. Boomer technology is just too new to get all the bugs out right away. In a few years, nobody will have any problems with them, then we won't need the ADPolice or the Knight Sabers!"  
"Sure, and everyone will forget what's happened? I don't think so."  
"People forget things that they don't want to remember. All the bad things will just be conveniently forgotten as if they never happened. We can't do anything about that. All we can do is ride it out while they fix the bugs. Everything will be fine in a few years. Then we won't need any ADPolice or trigger0happy mercenaries."  
Priss had overheard enough from the two men. She slammed her glass down hard, making miniscule cracks in the glass and spilling the brown liquid onto her gloved hand. She wiped her hand on a nearby bar rag and growled, "Damn them!" She stood up, tossing the beer away in a fit of rage, nearly missing a young man's head in the process.  
"Whaoh!" the bearded man said in response to Priss's outburst, "She looks pissed!"  
"She looks hot!" the younger man said without any regards to who might have heard him.  
Under other circumstances, the young boy would have come out of that with a few missing teeth and bruises, but with the mood Priss was in, she did not have the time to waste any effort on one little punk. She had bigger fish to fry. She stormed out of the bar without a word.  
--------------  
Miss Asagiri was pissed. So pissed the aura she was giving off was like tongues of flame licking out, setting everything off around her. She was so infuriated she would most likely hit the next man who hit on her. She needed to smash a Boomer to pieces so badly right then and there, but her two "associates had beaten her to the punch, literally. And with no Boomer to take out her frustrations on, her team-mates were just going to have to do. She was going to make sure everyone knew she did not like being left behind.  
Her bike roared down the street like literal hell on wheels, sparks flying faster and faster as she accelerated, pushing the limits of her bike and her own body. At such speeds, one minor mistake, one single slip-up, would spell destruction, death, or permenant physical harm. Priss didn't care, in fact, normally she would thrive on such negative energies, but in this case she gained no joy, she harvested no exstacy from this experiance of riding the razor's edge.  
She drove for what seemed like forever, dodging through what little traffic there was in the middle of the night in Tokyo's darker streets, nearly killing herself a dozen times or more in the process. She really couldn't remember just how many near misses, she was just too mentally occupied to keep such minor details fresh in her mind.  
After what seemed an eternity to Priss's burning mind, she finally arrived at Lady's 633. She dismounted her bike, placing the helmet atop it carefully before moving on. Her bike was the most important piece of equipment she had. It was her only way to escape, her only way to really feel and truly think. It was her only peace and was more important, more expensive than her own life. If she were to die, so be it, but she could never live without her bike.  
She walked with strength through the various trick passageways designed to throw off curious visitors straight through to the real purpose of the lingerie shop's warehouse. The secret base of the Knight Sabers lie deep within the structure, far underground where no passive detectors could ever find it amidst the rubble of the underground passageways that predated the second great Santo Quake. She patted the bulge in her pocket tenderly, as a mother would a good child, except no child lie within Priss's pocket, and no motherly instinct lie within Priss. The pocket contained her "Great Equalizer", to be used in case of emergencies and in case she was pissed off, which happened a lot.  
She stepped into the main elevator with little more than a low growl, something truly animalistic. Blood would be spilled tonight, she knew this for a fact.  
--------------  
Sylia closely examined the young girl that stood before her, eyeing every feature, every exposed servo, wire, actuator and hydraulic. Gally's entire body was an elegant, perfectly tuned and oft-used machine, capable of tremendous strength and agility normally only found in her own hard-suits and the higher-level Boomers the Knight Sabers fought. "Fascinating..." she whispered to herself.  
"I don't think I'm that fascinating, and I don't like being poked and prodded like I'm some kind of Guinea pig. I'm a human being, damn it, and I'd appreciate just a little respect!" Gally blurted angrily. It was completely understandable. She had just been yanked from everything she had known and loved into a strange new world, been in a battle with a demonic robot, and now she was being examined as if she were a doll or engine.  
"Of course, I'm sorry," Sylia apologized, "It's just that I have never seen anything along these lines. In one sense, the technology is far outdated, and yet in the same sense, it's far superior to anything we have right now. I'm merely intrigued," she explained.  
"I'm nothing special. Perhaps when I had the Beserker body, but that was sold off..." Gally held back a sigh of regret, one of dozens she kept hidden deep inside her metal encased soul. "I can't believe I allowed you to examine me like this. May I put my jacket on now?" she asked impatiently.  
"But I can't let you wear that ratty old thing. I'll find something much more comfortable for someone as lovely as you," Sylia said, stuffing one of Gally's few links to her past down a garbage chute. The chute sealed, then glowed red for a moment. A green light flashed on and the chute opened, releasing a geyser of steam into the air, revealing an empty chute.  
Gally reached out after her jacket, but was far too late, it was gone, and so easily disposed of. Was that what her life amounted to, a collection of easily destroyed things? "That was a gift..." she said regretfully. Her mind wasn't coherent enough to bear hatred, but that would come soon enough...  
"Oh, don't worry about it. It was ripped up anyway. It's time to cast of your metal shell and find the woman you've always been," Sylia replied nonchalantly. "I can find you something much better, and much prettier. Perhaps I can even find something prettier to put it on as well. Have you ever put any thought into synthetics?"  
"Synthetics?" Gally looked up at Sylia, hatred creeping into her mind at the corners.  
"Yes, artificial skin. It looks and feels just like the real thing. It even has nerve sensors to simulate the touch sensation. It's highly revolutionary, but I may be able to pull a few strings. Interested?"  
Gally's eyes lit up. One of her great dreams had been to have human skin, to feel the world as others did, to be more like them and not so hidden behind metal and plastic. She lifted her damaged arm and stared at it, imagining what it would be like to have skin, form, and feeling. With that one thing, anything would be possible, a normal life, a normal job, perhaps even love and...  
She shook it off. Other thoughts entered her mind. With skin and a weaker body, she'd be defenseless, unprepared for any attackers who wished her harm. With feeling came pain, and permenant injury. Could she handle that? Could she deal with having to tone down her livlihood, to take precautions and face fear?  
She was mulling this over when Priss stampeded into the room, looking pissed, or at least as pissed as the blank-faced young woman could look. "Sylia!" she shouted, "What the hell were you doing!?"  
Gally looked this new individual over with something akin to awe. The other two women she had met earlier treated Sylia with deference and regard, and yet this woman was yelling at her as if they were equals. Yet she did not seem to feel like an equal. Her clothes were rugged and ragged, having seen better days years ago. Her hair was unkempt, she wore no makeup to speak of, and her appearance was sub-standered to say the least. Her attitude appeared wild and uninhibited, not calm and collected like Sylia's. She had the look of a lowly factory drone. In every way she seemed a lesser to Sylia. So why was she yelling? It was strange, to say the least.  
"Ah, Priss, I've been trying to call you for hours," Sylia said plainly, never losing her cool in the face of the punk girl's onslaught.  
"Don't give me that crap!" Priss argued, "I didn't get any calls. You went out without me! Why?"  
"We didn't have the time to call you, Priss. Besides, Linna needed a good chance to try out her armor again. Her last run was rather... unsuccesful," Sylia explained, "Besides, we had all the help we could need waiting for us there," she gestured at Gally.  
Gally's face flushed when Sylia directed Priss over to her. Without her jacket, her body was exposed to the world and she didn't like feeling vulnerable.  
"What are you..." Priss trailed off as she turned her head. She took one look at Gally, who was sheepishly waving at her, and shouted, "Boomer!" then reached into her jacket. She pulled out a small gun, roughly the size of a shotgun stock, and aimed it at the girl.  
"Priss, don't shoot, she's not..." Sylia shouted, but wasn't in time. Priss fired twice...  
The bullets lodged themselves deep in Gally's wounded arm, igniting the leaking oil on fire and causing her arm to burst into flame. "What the hell?!" Gally shouted. She shook her arm, trying to get the flames to go down, but it was no use. The fire would not go out until it had used up all the available fuel, and Gally's body was the equivalent of a fuel drum. Within a minutes she would most likely explode, and there was nothing she could do.  
---------------  
Away from Sylia, Gally and Priss, away from their petty little problems of life and death, far away and above them lie the Tower. A glittering apex of human ingenuity and engineering, an icon of everything technology stood for. The Tower stretched forth, from its base on the island-country of Japan extending out past Earth's atmosphere to the Genaros Space Station, linking forever the land, sky and space in an invincible construction of steel and titanium. And yet, like the proverbial Apple for Adam and Eve, there were snakes infesting the Tower, who had control over the Tower. The snake was known as Genom.  
For years Genom and its main product, the Boomers, had cornered virtually every market on the planet, creating a near-unshakable stranglehold on the world's economy. They were everywhere and controlled everything one could imagine. The leaders of this incredible company were looked upon as near-gods, inhabitants of a portion of the world far above normal everyday humans, on a tower that linked the Earth to the heavens.  
But the CEO's are not Gods, nor even close approximations thereof. No, they are mere mortals governed by their selfish ambitions and petty needs, driven by a horrific desire to see those who would stand against them crushed beneath their Boomers heels.  
It is that very selfish hatred which drives the president and CEO of Genom, Quincy Rosencroitz, on this day-like-any-other. He has had an annoyance of late, a group of women who thwart his every move. These women who destroy his children, his lovely sons and daughters of the mechanical seed, who fight what seems to be the impossible battle, night after night. A never-ending war waged by the women known only as the Knight Sabers.  
They were not nearly as dangerous as one might assume, however, for a company as large as Genom had very little that could not be counter-checked. Many times Quincy used the Knight Sabers for his own agendas, helping them to find and destroy his more disobedient children before the public could learn of them. If he truly wished he could learn the identities of the Knight Sabers and have them hunted down and executed within an hour, and yet he did not do this. The mere knowledge of his power gave him an enormous high, which was why he allowed them to live, as barely acknowledged pests routing around in his city.  
But something else was out there now, something lethal, quick, and dangerous. Something he could not keep tabs on. He did not like the idea of an unknown variant in his plans. The variant would either have to be acquired and absorbed... or violently removed as soon as possible.  
"Meson, have you seen the reports?" Chairman Rosencroitz spoke, his voice channeled through speakers set throughout his vast office. The Chairman was not a normal man, in this or any regard. His body, atrophied from lack of movement and decaying from within from cancers and disease, was incapable of the simplest actions without machinery. His frail, deformed body was forever linked with his massive throne-like chair, which monitored his life-signs and kept him alive long after he should have died. Only his eyes, those two, uncaring soul-less eyes could move and they did, as they stared at his executive assistant with contempt and fury.  
"Yes I have. It appears another Boomer went on the rampage. It is nothing you need to worry about. It only killed seven people. In today's news that's hardly a front-page news story," Brian J. Meson responded between clenched lips. His mouth rarely moved, all so he could hide the gritted teeth and urge to retch when in front of his superior. The Chairman's form made him sick to his stomach. He shaded his eyes in the shadows of the room, covering his true feelings, for his eyes were filled with disgust and pity for the foolish old man, the man Meson knew he would one day kill to achieve his own glorified goals.  
"That is not the point, Meson," the Chairman replied coldly, his heaving breaths audible in his raspy voice, "I am not concerned with the rogue child. It happens now and then that a newborn child rebels against his parents. The Boomer is no different. I am more concerned with the girl."  
Meson's eyes lit up at the mention of the girl, yet his voice betrayed no concern, "What girl?"  
"The rebellious bitch who hurt my poor son. She did quite a bit of damage before vanishing without a trace," Quincy's eyes trailed over to a screen nearby, which lit up at the command of his very will. On the screens, images of the cyborg girl appeared, images of her in a grueling battle with the rogue Boomer. "What do you know of this child?"  
Meson studied the images, images he knew all to well from his own studies, and from other, unknowable sources. "She does not appear to be anything special. She has no armor, and appears no older than thirteen or fourteen. Her fighting skills appear rather impressive, however. I see no reason for her to be able to hold her own against even a maintenance Boomer let alone nearly destroy one," Meson remarked, his face completely passive.  
"And yet that is exactly what this girl did. She has strength far surpassing a normal human, and reflexes that nearly rate of the scale. On top of that she was 'rescued' by the Knight Sabers. I have no doubts as to this girl being something far more than she appears. I believe she may be some new kind of weapon," Quincy explained. His eyes narrowed and his gaze took on a frightening sheen, "I want to acquire her as soon as possible. I see potential here."  
"As you wish, sir," Meson answered, bowing as was custom. He stood and walked out, his face contorting to a scowl as soon as he walked into the shadows of the end of the office.  
He stepped out the door only to be greeted by a pale skinned female Boomer with red hair, clear eyes and a dark purple dress. "The meeting did not go well?" it, or rather she, asked.  
"No, it did not. I finally found an edge and the ancient bastard beat me to the punch!" Meson almost growled, trying to keep his anger well in check. "He found out about the girl. How?"  
"Girl, sir?" the Boomer questioned. Her analytical mind could only understand detailed conversation, not fragments, so her confusion was understandable, and yet damning.  
"Do not give me the same treatment I gave him!" he yelled, "How did the Chairman find out about the girl who fought the Boomer. We wiped the camera scanners clear. We deleted the ADPolice's report on it. It never happened!" he waved his hands around like a madman.  
"Sir. I believe the arresting officer on the scene filed triple-redundant paperwork on the incident. We erased two files, yet were unsuccessful at erasing the third before the Chairman found it," the Boomer droned matter-of-factly.  
"Damn!" Meson cursed, "The girl was my Project. She belonged to me, not the old man. He has no idea how much time I have invested in this Project, and he won't find out either. Set up the standard screening methods. I want the girl to be found by tomorrow afternoon, preferably in small pieces, and then we can truly find her."  
"I do not understand," the Boomer looked perplexed.  
"Understanding is not required, only obedience. Tell my lab team I want an exact duplicate of the girl created by tomorrow morning. We'll take it a step at a time after that," Meson commanded as he walked back to his own office.  
"The Chairman will not appreciate being deceived..." the Boomer trailed.  
"He is not being deceived, only informed early. Once we have the girl and learn her secrets, she will be in pieces anyway," Meson chuckled, "My plans will come to fruition, and that girl is the key to my key."  
  



End file.
